Going Green
by KyrieofAccender
Summary: The Doctor takes Rose to the planet of Lunti, a conservation world set aside entirely for the preservation of endangered species. But all is not as it seems - and what happens when the Doctor finds himself on the endangered list?
1. Chapter 1

Goodness, it's been a long time since I've posted anything here. Wow.

Anyway, this came to me one evening while I was having a Doctor Who marathon with some friends. And then I immediately thought, "Why haven't they done this already???" So I did it for them.

Also, blatant Hitchhiker's Guide reference... sorry.

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1.

The TARDIS's engines slowly ground to a halt as the Doctor flicked one last control, smiling up at his brilliant machine.

"So," Rose said, leaning across the console towards him with a curious grin, "where are we now?"

"Lunti!" the Doctor exclaimed, pushing a few more buttons to park the TARDIS and then running excitedly round the console to grab his coat off the railing. "The planet of Lunti, in the year 3420. Brilliant place, Lunti – what're we waiting for? C'mon!" He held out his hand to Rose and she took it, smiling, as they both bounded for the door.

Rose yelped the moment the doors were opened; she pitched forwards, flailing into open space for a moment, before grabbing the back of the Doctor's coat and the doorframe, pulling them back into the safety of the doorway.

"You parked the TARDIS in a tree?" she asked incredulously.

"Seems so, yeah," he replied, pulling his glasses out of his pocket and perching them on his nose as he looked down at the expanse of green below them, completely unfazed by the fact that they had nearly fallen to their deaths.

Once she'd got over the shock of it, Rose had to admit it was beautiful. They weren't in just any old tree – they were perched precariously in the canopy of the most enormous tree in existence, if the ones around them were any judge. All around them was a radiant expanse of green, the light from the twin suns blazing overhead dancing across the carpeting of leaves that stretched right across the world. Brilliant, jewel-colored birds flitted from branch to branch, dotting the never ending green with splashes of impossibly bright color. Rose could hear monkeys hooting, birds chattering, and a thousand more sounds from a thousand more creatures she couldn't place.

"Doctor, it's wonderful," she said, tearing her eyes away to turn and look at her. He'd been watching her expressions as she stared at the verdant canopies below them, and he grinned widely at her.

"Well, come on then," he said, nodding to the side.

"Come on? Come where? We can't exactly get down from here by walking!"

"Yes you can," the Doctor replied, his tone a bit blank as he showed her the metal catwalk a few inches to the left of the TARDIS doors, as if everybody should have known that actually parking on a tree branch would be quite silly and of _course_ there was a walkway right there. Rose shook her head, laughing, but then scrambled along after the Doctor.

"So what is this place?" she asked as they walked along, their feet making oddly metallic noises against the catwalk that clashed irritatingly with the glorious jungle around them.

"Lunti is what you might call the universe's largest zoo. It's an entire planet devoted to protecting endangered species. Nice, really – and it makes a pretty penny from all the tourists. Hence the catwalks."

"So you're actually taking me sightseeing for once?" Rose asked, grinning mischievously.

"Yeah, I guess I am," he said, then paused. "Well, mostly. Well, maybe a little bit-"

"Doctor," Rose said insistently, stopping to look up at him with a stern glare. He deflated.

"Well, I _did_ want to take you sightseeing, but we passed this on the way and I got pretty strange readings. And I thought we should come have a look. And sightsee at the same time." He grinned.

"What sort of weird readings?"

"They're pretty – well, bizarre, really. Lunti's normally a quiet place, you pass by it with hardly a blip on the screen, but today the charts were bouncing all over the place."

Admittedly, Rose was only half paying attention as the Doctor babbled away about energy flares and temporal fluxes. Such technicalities didn't seem to belong in a place like this. She meandered calmly alongside him, gazing in awe at the trees around them. _They must cover this entire planet_, she thought with a smile. That was nice.

She turned to tell the Doctor so and found that he wasn't walking by her side any longer. Rose turned around quickly and found he'd stopped several yards behind and was peering at something over the guard rails on the catwalk. Just as Rose took a step towards him, however, something leapt off a thick branch nearby and onto the catwalk, landing on the corrugated metal with silent paws.

"Doctor!" Rose cried, running up to stand beside him and pull him away from the gigantic, leopardlike feline that was now preparing to spring at them. Surprisingly, however, the Doctor hesitated.

"What?" he said, taking off his spectacles as though the cat inching towards them was a smudge on the lenses.

"_Doctor_…" Rose wheedled, tugging on his sleeve and dragging him away. She looked frantically around for somewhere to hide, but there was nothing – just the catwalk and endless trees.

"But that's impossible. That – that's an Algolian Suntiger, they've been extinct for hundreds of years by now-

"It doesn't matter what it is if it eats us!" Rose cried.

Fortunately, before the Doctor could protest further the cat opened its mouth and roared at them, revealing double rows of razor sharp teeth set off by two massive fangs that probably could have torn a hole in the metal walkway. The Doctor didn't hesitate now; he grabbed Rose's hand and turned to flee, tugging Rose with him.

"_Run_!"


	2. Chapter 2

2.

The Doctor and Rose careened down the catwalk, the growling predator close on their heels. Ahead of them, the catwalk branched off; directly ahead lay more unprotected walkway, but off to the right led down a winding little path to a research station half-hidden in the foliage.

"This way!" the Doctor cried, turning sharply, with Rose right behind him.

The cat skidded to a halt and yowled at them before leaping forwards again. Rose looked away and turned her head forward, towards the research station and the door they had to reach to get to safety. It was then that she almost stopped as well. A few paces in front of the door – and not very far from them, at their careening pace – was a short, squat creature with a 1920's bob haircut and a labcoat, scowling up at her and the Doctor. There was a device that looked a bit like Jack's squareness gun clutched in the creature's right hand, and it was aimed directly at the Doctor's head.

"Duck!" Rose shouted, and she tackled him, knocking them both down onto the catwalk with a bang, halting with the Doctor's head hanging over the side. Rose closed her eyes, clinging to the Doctor and waiting tensely, wondering if she was going to be shot or eaten.

But nothing happened. For a few intense moments, she waited to hear the whrring noise of the gun or the snarling sounds of the cat, but there was silence except for the distant chirping of birds. Tentatively, she opened one eye – the mysterious little woman was still aiming her gun, but not at them. Quickly, Rose sat up, and the Doctor did as well; they disentangled their limbs and his coat with a nervous laugh before turning back to the matter at hand.

In front of them, the cat was still there, but it was frozen in place, its face snarling viciously, every one of its many teeth showing clearly. Behind them, the little woman stood with her gun pointed at the cat, but she wasn't looking at it; she was looking at a little panel in the handle, working her thumb over the buttons. Suddenly, with a quiet ping, the cat vanished completely.

"Well then," the Doctor said cheerily, getting to his feet. "Thanks for that. I'm the Doctor and this is Rose, who're you?" He grinned at the little woman, but she only scowled up at him.

"Professor Rashida. And I should like very much to know what you two are doing up here on your own. You're not with a tour group."

"Oh, yeah, that. Well, we were just looking at one of those Gragnian butterflies for a little too long and our group wandered away from us. One of those things, you know."

Professor Rashida was still watching them intently with narrowed eyes, her two little doglike ears sticking up out of her dark hair and flicking back and forth irritably. She turned to Rose with a frown.

"You're not carrying cameras," she said pointedly.

"'Course not. Rose and I never carry cameras, do we Rose?"

"Nope," she replied, shaking her head.

"We like living in the moment when it's actually – er – happening, you know." He flashed her another charismatic grin, but the Professor was unmoved. He sighed, glancing over at Rose, who raised one eyebrow, unable to conceal a smirk at the Doctor's irritation.

"Here, look," the Doctor said, rummaging in his coat pocket and procuring the psychic paper. "We're not poachers or anything, I promise."

Rashida looked at the paper for a moment before the frown broke. She didn't smile – Rose was beginning to think she never did – but she stopped staring at them as though she were trying to scan them.

"You're researchers. Why didn't you say so? Come with me – there's lots to show you."

She turned away and headed for the door of the research station. The Doctor beamed down at Rose.

"What did it say?" she whispered, and he glanced at the psychic paper before putting it away.

"Apparently we're eminent scientists come to view the conservation efforts – works for me!"

"Did she seem dodgy to you?" Rose hissed once Rashida was inside the door.

"Nah. Professors are often stodgy, that's all. Come on, aren't you curious?"

"I didn't say we shouldn't go in, did I?" Rose pointed out with a mischievous smile.

"No you didn't. Well, after you!"


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks to Taylor Harkness for her review! *tips hat*

Also thanks to my best friend for reading this story through before I began posting it and giving it the thumbs up.

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3.

The inside of the research station was so blatantly incongruous to the landscape outside that it took Rose completely by surprise. She stopped in the doorway, causing the Doctor to bump into her.

"You all right?" he asked, leaning over her shoulder to look at her.

"Yeah, fine," she replied with a nod, looking at the platinum-coated room they were standing in. Instrument panels blinked quietly to themselves; every wall was covered with screens and buttons; switches and dials glowed faintly in the dimly lit room.

Rashida had gone to stand behind the semicircular console board and was still staring intently at her little gun, pressing more buttons on it. The Doctor balked.

"If you wouldn't mind, could you put that down? I'm not much a fan of – oh." He fell silent when suddenly the device lit up with another ping, and she began twisting and folding it until it held more of a resemblance to a video game controller than a weapon.

"It's a bit dark in here, isn't it?" Rashida said offhandedly, and she raised the controller and pushed a large yellow button in the center.

Immediately the lights came on, and Rose threw up an arm to shield her eyes as the clinical glare from overhead bounced off every shining instrument panel in the room, making the place go from mysteriously dim to unnaturally bright in far too short a time.

"Hey!" she said indignantly, tentatively lowering her arm and blinking into the brightness. "You could've warned us!"

Rashida's head snapped up from the device and she looked at Rose, scowling. She then turned back to the device and pressed another button, folding the little plastic box in a different way. It was longer now, and flatter, and Rashida marched forward and started waving it around Rose's head.

"Oi!" Rose shouted, jumping back to stand beside the Doctor as the device pinged and whirred, and Rashida watched the screen. "What d'you think you're doing?"

The Professor looked up then and flipped the device closed, almost as though it was a cell phone. She was still scowling fiercely at Rose.

"I suppose I didn't need the scanner to tell you were _human_," she snapped, saying the word 'human' as though it meant 'rude.' Rose folded her arms across her chest and scowled right back at Rashida.

"Interesting place you've got here," the Doctor said suddenly. He began peering at all the instrument panels, randomly pressing buttons. Rose smiled as he stood in front of the screen, flicking between images of trees and flowers and the myriad of creatures that lived there; he always caught her up with his curiosity and enthusiasm. Rashida, however, marched forward and pulled him away from the instrument panels.

"If you _don't_ mind," she said stiffly. The Doctor's grin deflated.

"Oh, if you insist," he said dejectedly, looking like a schoolboy who has been dragged away from the candy shop window. "Right, anyway," he added, perking up again, leaning against the console and raising one eyebrow at Rashida in curiosity. "What brings you to Lunti?"

"I am Professor Rashida," the little woman stated as though that answered the question.

"Sorry?" the Doctor said, looking puzzled. Rose stood by and wondered how long it would be before they could escape this arrogant woman and go somewhere else.

"_The_ Professor Rashida. This is _my_ project. This is _my _planet, these creatures that I have protected belong to _me_. Of course I am here on Lunti!"

"I see," the Doctor said immediately, his eyebrows almost disappearing into his head. Rashida scowled at him.

"Why don't you two head down to the main station on the lower levels? I'm sure there are those who will gladly answer your questions there."

Without another word, Rashida ushered them towards a door covered almost entirely by instrument panels. As they stepped through into the teleport pod, neither Rose nor the Doctor noticed that Rashida had her device out again, and was waving it in the Doctor's direction. All Rose knew was that she heaved a sigh of relief once the door slammed shut.


	4. Chapter 4

Thank you to endymion2, StAnDiNgContrapposto, James Birdsong, and Mysterious Jedi for their reviews! I do hope everyone continues to enjoy this.

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4.

The Doctor and Rose stumbled out of the teleport pod a few moments later, slightly stunned by the unexpected warp transport.

"Ooh, that was fantastic," the Doctor groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. "You all right, Rose?"

"Yeah," she said, working a kink out of her shoulders. "So where are we anyway?"

"Lower laboratories, if I pushed the right button. I figure this is the place to look around for signs of those energy flares."

He shoved his hands into his pockets and sauntered along, Rose following along behind him, staring in amazement at the room around her. Never had she seen a planet of such obvious extremes – the laboratories were like Rashida's research stations, stark and cold and metallic, harshly clashing with the lush natural beauty of the outside world. Everywhere she looked, people in lab coats scurried about with phials and beakers filled with oddly coloured liquids, holding them over Bunsen burners or stirring other chemicals into the glassware.

"What has all this got to do with what's going on outside?" she asked the Doctor, leaning towards him and speaking in a whisper.

"No idea. But I intend to find out," he whispered back. "One more thing – if you could just not mention the fact that I'm not really human, I'd appreciate that. Around this lot, I'd really rather not come across as the 'last-of-my-kind' sort."

Rose nodded, her eyes widening in surprise. She hadn't thought of that. Was the Doctor in any danger because he'd brought her here?

Nonsense, she thought reassuringly. He wasn't in any danger at all unless something went catastrophically wrong.

Which, of course, happened on a pretty regular basis during their adventures.

"Oi! You there!" A voice shouted from across the room. "What are you doing here?"

Like, right about now, for instance. Rose sighed as a tree-woman came running up to them, waving a twiglike hand in their direction.

"Hallo," the Doctor said with a smile. "I'm the Doctor and this is Rose. Rashida sent us down here," he added quickly, whipping out his psychic paper as proof.

The tree-woman's expression immediately melted into a smile. Her teeth were very white against the bark-brown of her skin, and Rose was relieved to see that somebody around here _could_ smile.

"Oh. Well then. Forgive me, I didn't know. My name is Codi; I can show you around if you'd like."

"We'd like that very much," the Doctor replied, beaming confidently.

"So – what is all this stuff?" Rose asked as Codi began to lead them along.

"Oh – this is all for what the Professor calls her Resurrection Project."

"What?" the Doctor asked, looking at the tall tree-woman incredulously.

"I know," Codi said with a laugh, dismissing the Doctor's worried look with a wave of her hand. "We all think it's ridiculous. And it is really – especially since none of it makes any sense."

"Resurrection Project – what could that possibly have to do with a conservation planet?"

"Beats me. Rashida's not one for revealing her master plans. Basically what she's got us doing is decoding DNA, mixing formulas for her, that sort of stuff. Things she doesn't want to do for herself. Ah, I mean, doesn't have _time_ for," Codi corrected sarcastically.

"I'm guessing you don't like Rashida much," the Doctor said conversationally, although he raised one eyebrow in puzzlement.

"She walks around here like she's a god. And she's got us all doing mindless grunt work. It's no wonder nobody's fond of her. But enough about that – let me show you some of the more interesting parts of what we do."

"But-" the Doctor protested, but Codi was already insistently leading them away, babbling on about some more interesting aspect of Lunti's machinations with a chattering quality that could match the Doctor's own. Rose had to laugh, but when she looked back at the laboratory just as the doors closed behind them, she suppressed a shudder. Something strange was going on here.


	5. Chapter 5

Hello, all! Sorry this took me a bit longer than expected to post - college suddenly pounced on me for a few days. Whoops.

In any case, thanks to Cinderpel2, Cillyme, StAnDiNgContrapposto, and sunflowerb for their reviews. They made my day.  


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5.

The moment they exited the laboratories, Rose saw an extreme difference in Codi's mannerisms. While she'd been messing about with chemicals, she had been flippant and frustrated. Outside, however, as they walked amongst enormous trees and a myriad of flowers, she seemed more relaxed, but at the same time more charged. _This_ was the part of her job Codi was passionate about, Rose realized as a little creature resembling a marmoset landed on Codi's head and began clambering around in the woman's twiglike hair.

"That," the Doctor said softly, leaning down to whisper in Rose's ear, "is a Tulusian treehopper. They might only be five inches long, but they can leap like you wouldn't believe. I saw one do fifty feet once."

"Really?" Rose asked, eyeing the miniscule monkey incredulously. It was currently more interested in running back and forth across Codi's shoulders than jumping fifty feet.

"Yup. They've got supercharged hind leg muscles, pretty much. Look," the Doctor pointed, and Rose saw that the little creature's haunches were almost twice the size of its head. "All that power, they're wound up like springs, almost. It takes more energy for them to walk around calmly than it does for them to leap across the sky."

Suddenly the treehopper decided it had had enough of Codi, and, using the treewoman's shoulder as a launchpad, it sprang up onto a branch high above their heads. In another leap it was gone, swallowed up by green foliage.

"I'm guessing that's why you work here," the Doctor said, his voice soft and compassionate. Codi nodded.

"I'm here to help them," she said sincerely. "My kind was endangered once. Now I want to help other creatures from disappearing – and how can I do that if I'm shut up in some laboratory all day? Yes, things like that can help us to learn about the things that live here, but it doesn't tell you everything! Rashida would keep us cooped up inside all the time, messing with chemistry when our real work should be here!" Codi paused, realizing that her voice had risen. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"It's all right. Maybe you can help us. You don't like Rashida – perhaps you can tell us a little more of what she's up to. Specifically things that involve random energy spikes of about 5.78 terawatts."

Codi's eyes went wide, looking horrified.

"What?" she said stumblingly.

"Oh, come on," the Doctor said, his bright brown eyes intense and serious. "You know. You know exactly what I'm talking about, and it's not normal. My ship picked up readings that shouldn't be happening anywhere, let alone on a conservation planet. Energy spikes absolutely off the charts – and seemingly random, no discernible oscillation pattern. Magnetic pulses that could rip a hole in the fabric of space-time if they weren't monitored, and I'm betting they aren't. They're too erratic for that. So c'mon, tell me. What is it she's working on? Pulsar radiation repository? Ionic blast distributor – what?"

Codi blinked.

"Does he do this often?" she said, glancing back at Rose.

"All the time," Rose replied, grinning at the Doctor. He shot her a flustered look.

"Whatever it is you're laughing at, it's not funny. There's something here that shouldn't be, something that could blow this planet to bits if Rashida isn't careful, and I want to know what it is." He looked strictly down at Codi, who tried to back away. "Codi, I _need_ you to tell me what's going on. Whatever it is, I can't let it happen."

Codi stared at the Doctor for a moment, then glanced at Rose, who nodded. She might not have understood a word of the Doctor's monologue, but everything he had mentioned sounded dangerous. Better to let the Doctor see it and get rid of it before things here escalated horribly.

Finally Codi looked back at the Doctor and nodded.

"This way," she said softly. The Doctor grinned.

"There we go, what did I tell you?" he said to Rose as they followed Codi back inside. "Here we are, saving the world. Again."

"So much for sightseeing," Rose replied, then laughed.


	6. Chapter 6

Thanks to Cinderpel2, CountryGrl, and airyie for their reviews! I do love reviews so... (hint hint)

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6.

Codi led them to a tiny little room off of one of the auxiliary laboratories, looking nervously down the hall in both directions before shutting and locking the door behind them. She turned to find Rose seated somewhat uncomfortably on the bench at the back of her office, looking askance at the Doctor. _He _was up at the front of the room, hunched over her desk and poking curiously at the little magnetic toy she had perched on the edge. He was moving some of the pieces so that they fit together in elaborate, lacy patterns.

Seeing Codi enter the room, standing awkwardly in her own office, Rose cleared her throat loudly and deliberately, making the Doctor look up. He straightened and took his hand quickly away from the magnet model.

"Basic molecular structure," he said haltingly by way of explanation, then switched gears quickly. "Anyway, about this project of Rashida's." He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the wall, his head tipped back as he waited for Codi to tell her story.

Codi sighed and pulled her desk chair around, sinking into it. Rose frowned.

"You all right?" she asked, and Codi nodded, looking a little numb. "Whatever's gone wrong, the Doctor can help, all right? But you need to tell him," Rose prompted gently, giving the tree woman an earnest little smile when she looked up.

"All right. Although I have to warn you, I don't know everything about it."

"That's all right – just tell us what you know."

"It started about two months after I started here, I think. We weren't allowed in the lower levels any more – there's miles of tunnels underground, generators for the labs, supply rooms and stuff. Rashida even fired somebody who went down by accident once."

"Did she?" the Doctor said, leaning forward a little.

"Mmmhmm. She would've been better served keeping Toki on, but – Anyway, you didn't need to go down to hear the noises. Every once in a while – and it's gotten more frequent – there would be these blasting sounds. Like something getting zapped, you know. It was awful if you were working in the laboratories right above that.

"And Rashida kept us in the labs more and more often. Before, it used to be that we'd be out working with the creatures we're protecting, but now – we're just _analyzing_ them. Every physical property you could imagine, decoding DNA, recreating unusual chemicals… none of it's made any sense. She refuses to tell us the big picture. All I know is what I'm supposed to be doing – recording enzymes, of all things – and what I've pieced together from what my coworkers tell me. It's not much – they're just as confused as I am."

"Zapping noises, did you say?" the Doctor said, pushing himself upright and beginning to pace the room. He ran a hand through his hair as he thought, making it stick up even more madly than usual. "And unusual chemicals. What could she want with – and what was that project called? The Resurrection Project?"

"Yes," Codi said with a nod. "She's never told us anything about it, really."

"And these – zapping noises – they're loud, yes? Shake things up a bit?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever been near the lower levels when one was going on? Any light coming from them – blue or red light?"

"I think so, yes."

"And weird chemicals – enzymes, you said," the Doctor continued, more or less ignoring Codi's acknowledgements. He continued pacing; his hair stood more and more on end. "Resurrection Project zapping noises red and blue light enzymes," he rattled off quickly. "Come on, come on, thinkthinkthinkthinkthink."

"What are you doing with the research, Codi?" Rose asked finally, tearing her eyes away from the Doctor; his pacing was making her dizzy.

"I don't know a lot," Codi said, frowning. "But from what I can make out, our part of the project is medicinal-"

"That's it!" the Doctor cried, jumping up in the air excitedly. "Rose, you're brilliant. That's it – this is a conservation planet! And what do environmentalists always use as their reason for not having people cut down the rainforest? Back on Earth, eh?"

"Carbon dioxide?" Rose said, puzzled.

"Nonono, the other one," the Doctor said. "They're always telling people if they destroy the rainforest they might just kill off the cure for cancer, right?"

"Right!" Rose cried. Now it was her turn to jump excitedly to her feet. "And that's what Rashida's up to – she's turning this into a commercial venture, right?"

"Something like that," the Doctor said. "It doesn't explain everything – but it explains what Codi's been up to."

"But – if they're just doing medical research – why the big secret?" Rose asked.

"Exactly," the Doctor replied. "And it doesn't explain that zapping. Which I'm presuming is where those energy spikes are coming from, but we still don't know what for."

"I could – I could take you down there," Codi said softly. "I don't think I want to stick around much longer if Rashida still has the run of things."

"Fantastic!" the Doctor said, grinning hugely.

It was then that the intercom buzzed.

"Codi," Rashida's harsh voice rasped over the com system. "Do you have that Doctor fellow with you?"

"Yah," the Doctor answered, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking up at the ceiling in frustration.

"I'd like a word, Doctor," Rashida snapped. "Back up in my office, if you please."

"All right. C'mon, Rose."

"Not your assistant," Rashida's voice crackled on the line.

"I'm not his assistant," Rose shot back, catching the Doctor's eye. He raised an eyebrow and glanced down at the com, giving a little shrug. "I'm his friend."

"All the more reason to stay. You're not qualified to be included in the conversation I must have with the Doctor. You will stay." Then the line went dead.

"Nasty old bat," Codi muttered, glaring at the intercom button.

"Codi, will you take Rose downstairs?" The tree woman nodded at once. "Right. Go snoop around down there for a bit. I'll go see what Rashida wants."

"Be careful?" Rose asked as Codi led her out the door.

"Always am," he said cheerily, grinning as Rose smiled and followed Codi down the hall. He then turned towards the teleport pod, a frown spreading across his face again. It was time to find out what this was all about.


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks to Genuka, CountryGrl, and Cinderpel2 for their reviews. Yaaay reviews! *hint hint, wink wink*

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7.

The Doctor stumbled out of the teleport pod again, shaking his head vigorously to clear it.

"Well," he said loudly and jovially, knowing it would irritate Rashida, who was bent over the console, her device still in her hand. "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Conservation, of course," Rashida said, not looking up from her device. She was turning a dial carefully, toggling a button on the side with her pinky finger as she did so. The Doctor looked around suspiciously, but nothing in the room seemed to be moving, so he turned his attention back to Rashida.

"Actually, I'd like to talk about this Resurrection Project of yours," he said nonchalantly. He grinned amiably when Rashida jerked her head up and glowered at him. He pulled his glasses out of his pocket and perched them on his nose, wandering over to the wall and peering at the instrument panel. He began reading aloud the minuscule labels. "Teleport controls… video screen contrast… aha! What's this?" He pulled open a slot in the wall, revealing yet another instrument panel. "Temporal retriever," he said, sounding impressed. "Now, how would you get the technology to build that, I wonder? And more importantly, what are you doing with it? You're gearing this place up to be more than a tourist attraction, aren't you? You're planning some great medical coup. Professor Rashida, savior of the universe."

Rashida scowled darkly at him, her hands still working the device.

"What's the temporal retriever got to do with it, though? What are you doing mucking about with time?"

"You should be one to talk, Time Lord," Rashida shot back, for once meeting his gaze. The effect was nothing short of terrifying.

All the bounce seemed to go out of the Doctor.

"Ah," he said slowly.

"That's right, Doctor. You are not the only one with a bargaining chip."

He bobbled his head from side to side, making an indecisive face.

"Well, maybe. You know who I am. All right, good for you! But I know you're doing something you shouldn't be, and I'm warning you – I'll stop you."

"Awfully sure of yourself, aren't you, Doctor?" Rashida said dismissively. She turned back to her device and began turning the dial again. The Doctor was instantly on alert, his eyes darting around the room as though he were waiting for something to pounce. "But that is the wonder of your race, is it not? The Time Lords, so beautifully arrogant. Always so moral, so very sure that their way was the only way. That their rules should be followed by everyone. But I say, what's the point? If you can break the laws of time and space and matter, of life and death – why hold back?"

"Because it's wrong not to," the Doctor said emphatically, his eyes wide.

"You would say that, of course. You're a Time Lord. The _last_ of the Time Lords."

"That doesn't mean that it isn't true. Rashida, if you're messing with that, then you've put a great deal at stake. The very fabric of space-time-"

"Oh, hush your prattling, I've taken every precaution," she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand, not looking up from her device. She unfolded a corner and clicked the new square into place, beginning to push the buttons that had appeared there as well.

"Whatever it is you're doing, you can't possibly have accounted for everything. Rashida, you have to stop-"

"Who says? You? One lone Time Lord, with no one but some human girl to back him. What authority do you have over me? In fact-" She looked up, meeting the Doctor's eyes again as she pressed one last button. The Doctor yelped as metal shackles suddenly snaked up out of the floor, attaching themselves to his wrists and ankles and trapping him completely in only a few seconds. "-In fact, I think it is I who has authority over you."

"Rashida, let me go," the Doctor said warningly, tugging against the shackles.

"You are an endangered species, as far as I am concerned. That gives me jurisdiction to take control of you for your own protection." The little woman smiled vindictively as the Doctor scowled down at her across the console.

"You wanted to see what I was doing," she said calmly, her finger poised over her device again. "Well, now you will."

She pressed the button.


	8. Chapter 8

Thanks to Cinderpel2, CountryGrl, FantasticlyBrilliant, charliebrown1234, and My blue rose for their reviews! Reviews are happy things. :)

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8.

Rose and Codi met no resistance as they snuck down to the lower levels, but Codi took them down back staircases and through empty laboratories, poking her head nervously around every corner and jumping constantly. Rose followed in silence, guessing that Codi wouldn't be at all comforted if she said anything.

Finally they reached the last door, an enormous steel contraption with no visible handles. Rose tried to put her fingers into the crack between the doors and pull, but nothing happened.

"Well," she said with a sigh, turning to Codi. "What now?"

But Codi was already doing something. There was a little panel on the side of the door that Rose hadn't noticed, and Codi had slid it out of the wall and held her hand over the blinking buttons, hesitating.

"If I type in my password we can get in, but Rashida will know I've been down here," she said quietly.

"We need to see what's going on," Rose prompted. "We need to see it so we can tell the Doctor. Please, Codi."

Codi hesitated for one moment longer, then pressed a few buttons before closing the panel with a flick of her wrist. The doors slid open slowly, and Rose and Codi ducked inside, pressing another few buttons to shut the colossal steel panels behind them.

The lights came on as the doors clanged shut, and Rose gasped. They were surrounded by machinery – complicated machinery that neither of them could even begin to comprehend.

"What is this thing?" Codi asked breathlessly, stroking her twiglike fingers over one of the panels.

The machine lit up and started to whirr. Numbers flashed across a screen, and they looked like dates to Rose. At least, some of them looked like old fashioned Earth dates – others looked more like the time the Doctor had taken her to see the end of the world and the year had had the word 'apple' in it.

There was another screen below the one flashing dates, and this one had images – Rose caught brief flashes of all sorts of creatures. The images changed so quickly she could hardly make them out, only noting fur or feathers or scales, but she was absolutely positive that she saw a wooly mammoth at one point.

"Hang on," she said, pointing at the scrolling images. "Resurrection Project – and there was a wooly mammoth there, I'm positive!"

"A what?" Codi asked, looking at the flashing numbers as though hypnotized.

"A wooly mammoth – a great big elephant thing from my planet that went extinct thousands of years ago." Rose paused for a moment, then blinked. "Oh my God, that's it," she said, her eyes going wide as everything the Doctor had been musing in Codi's office ran through her head and the images flashed before her eyes. "That's what she's doing – the Resurrection Project, of course! She's scooping up e_xtinct_ animals and bringing them here so she can research them and – I dunno, make medicine out of them!"

"What?" Codi said incredulously. "But I've never seen anything like that here."

Suddenly the panel in front of them beeped, and the numbers and pictures stopped whirring, settling on one selecting. Rose gulped.

"I think you're about to," she said, looking back up at the machine.

Suddenly the noise of the machine increased tenfold, and from a prong near the top, strange blue light started gathering before zapping down towards the bottom, creating a stream of strangely shimmering blue.

"The Doctor told me about that," she yelled over the noise as she and Codi backed away. "That's what the TARDIS goes through – his time machine. Blue going back in time, red going forward."

"What are you talking about?" Codi shouted back. Rose just shook her head, staring fearfully at the massive machine.

"I think we should get out of here!" Rose said as something began to materialize in the stream of blue light. Something that Rose knew for a fact had very sharp teeth.

Codi hurried over to the door as quickly as possible, but before she could finish the password, the zapping light switched off, and the thing had materialized on the platform above them. The moment it saw them, the velociraptor roared ferociously. Codi screamed and accidentally hit the wrong button; the door opening device jammed.

"Come on!" Codi shouted at it, hitting the refresh button over and over. "Come _on!_"

Rose was watching the velociraptor, and while Codi was frantically hitting buttons, it was finding its way down to the ground. Finally it jumped to the floor, roaring at them again.

"No time," Rose said, grabbing Codi's hand. "Run!"

Rose sprinted past rows of machinery, ducking around computer terminals and more switches than she could ever hope to count. Finally she pulled Codi down between a generator and a temperature meter, huddling next to the tree woman in the tight space so she could get a chance to catch her breath and think.

Codi was panicking. She was whimpering softly, her eyes wide and round as saucers.

"First I get myself fired, and now I'm gonna get myself killed!" she cried, but Rose hushed her quickly.

"You're kidding me, right? Shh! This isn't a good time to lose it!" Codi fell silent, and Rose tried desperately to think of a way out, wishing more than anything that the Doctor was with them.

A flash of movement caught her eye, and she looked up, expecting to see velociraptor teeth descending on her, but instead, she was looking across to the wall of the room, where a door in the wall had slid open. The door to a teleport pod.

"That's it!" Rose whispered triumphantly, and she jumped to her feet, pulling Codi with her.

The moment they moved, the velociraptor screamed again, racing towards them. Rose and Codi dove into the pod, pulling the door shut behind them as quickly as possible. It jammed on a set of razor sharp dinosaur claws.

"Get us out of here!" Rose shouted, kicking at the claw and trying to shove it back out the door with the heel of her boot.

"There's only one button, and it's not marked!" Codi said, staring at the place where the floor buttons ought to have been.

"Just push it!"

Codi pushed the button just as Rose finally succeeded in shoving the claws out the door and slamming it shut. They hurtled through the teleport system, crashing into the little pod that was their destination with a jolt. They didn't move for a long time; they simply sat on the floor of the pod, slumped against one another, breathing hard and feeling very glad that _most_ dinosaurs were extinct.


	9. Chapter 9

Snap! Have I managed to miss both my Wednesday AND Saturday posts this week? *sigh* I'm sorry guys. Midterms have pounced on me.

Thanks to Cinderpel2, Genuka, and Reaper Nanashi for their reviews. And I promise I'll post sooner next week.

* * *

9.

After half an eternity of catching their breaths, Rose finally stood up and pushed the button to open the door, keeping her hand on it just in case she needed to shut it again. But when the door slid open, she was too shocked to move. Behind her, still on the floor, Codi gasped.

They were looking into an enormous warehouse neither of them had seen before. It was filled, from end to end, floor to ceiling, with cages. There must have been thousands of them. Not all of them were full, but the creatures that were behind the iron bars of their prisons paced angrily, barking, yowling, or chirping with indignation as Rose tentatively stepped out of the teleport pod.

"Look at them all," Codi whispered as she clambered out behind Rose.

"Rashida must be shipping them all up here after she zaps them in," Rose explained, pointing at a dodo bird that was hopping up and down wildly in order to catch their attention.

There was something about the cacophony of sound that seemed off to Rose. She wandered through the rows of cages, listening hard for the edge of something that didn't sound like an animal. It sounded much more metallic.

As she rounded a corner, the sound clarified as the creature next to her stopped braying to pause for breath. It was the sonic screwdriver!

"Doctor?" she cried, hurrying forward.

"Rose?"

"Where are you?" she asked, running towards the sound of his voice. Codi was struggling to keep up, but Rose wasn't paying attention. She had to warn the Doctor about the machine downstairs.

"Next to the Farilian Loxodanta."

"The _what_?"

"The… big pink elephant thing."

Rose turned a few more corners, wondering if she was _supposed _to get lost in this labyrinth of extinct creatures, before she finally found the Doctor in the last place she expected to see him – a cage.

"Doctor!" she shouted, scurrying up to the cage and grabbing the bars, as though shaking them would get him out of here. "What the hell are you doing in there?"

"I'm having a grand old time," he replied crossly. His spectacles were perched on the edge of his nose, and his hair was a complete mess – he must have run his hands through it quite often in his agitation. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm trying to get out."

"Did Rashida put you in there?"

"Yup. According to her, I'm an endangered species," he said sardonically. Codi's eyebrows raised.

"But humans aren't endangered-"

"I'm not human," he said, meeting Codi's eyes with his intense brown ones. "I'm a Time Lord. The last of the Time Lords, as Rashida unfortunately worked out. So she's stuck me down here with all her other miracles of science," he scoffed.

"She's got a machine downstairs," Rose began explaining. "It flashes red and blue lights, like what's going on outside the TARDIS, like you said. And then it plucks things out of the time they were still alive. We got chased by a velociraptor down there."

"But those are only little guys-"

"Tell me that next time you get chased by one," Rose interrupted with a glare. "Anyway, what are we supposed to do now?"

"Well, I can't get out of here," the Doctor said with an exasperated sigh. "Rashida is far too clever for her own good. The cages are deadlocked; the sonic screwdriver can't open them."

"You mean you don't have a plan?" Codi said, looking hopelessly at the Doctor, then imploringly at Rose.

"Plan? Nah. I make it up as I go along. Speaking of which," he said, switching gears again and turning to Rose, his expression entirely serious. "I need you to go upstairs and make a mess of things. Do you think you can do that?"

"What sort of a mess?"

"Whatever you can manage. Get into Rashida's work station and push every button you can see. Pull all the levers, turn all the dials, whatever it takes to get her attention diverted in here. And then I need you to get rid of the thing downstairs."

"How am I supposed to do that? It's huge!"

The Doctor passed her the sonic screwdriver through the bars. Tentatively Rose took it; she knew it wouldn't get him out of the cage but all the same, she didn't like the thought of leaving him without it.

"Setting 42. There's an instrument panel hidden in the wall that corresponds to the machine down there; that setting on the sonic screwdriver will make sure it can't be used again. All right?"

"What are you going to do?" Rose asked, looking back up at the Doctor with concern.

"I'll stay here and wait for Rashida. Hopefully I'll be able to trick her into letting me out. And hopefully I can get her to see some sense," he said, and all Rose could do was nod. He had that stiff, determined look on his face that meant he was going to do exactly what he said, and anybody who got in his way was going to pay for it.

"All right. But be careful, will you?" she said, pointing the sonic screwdriver at him in a threatening manner.

"Oh, I'm always careful," he said nonchalantly, breaking out of his determination for a moment to give her a dazzling grin.

"Oh yeah," she said sarcastically, grinning back. "_Real_ careful."

"Can I come with you, Rose?" Codi put in suddenly. Rose turned, a little surprised; she'd almost forgotten Codi was there.

"You'd better," the Doctor said. "Now. There's another teleport on the far wall over there," he added, pointing. He grinned at Rose again as she nodded and began to turn in the direction he'd pointed. "Good luck."


	10. Chapter 10

Thanks to FantasticlyBrilliant, StAnDiNgContrapposto, ChampionShoes, Genuka, charliebrown1234, and Cinderpel2.

Also, thanks very much to Reaper Nanashi for the suggestions regarding the erroneous velociraptor. I've already finished the story, without the solutions you suggested, but rest assured I will consider them and will probably use one to fix it asap. :)

Also also - I feel I must state this, since I've gotten A LOT of comments about it. Prior to writing this, I had never heard of _The Last Dodo_. I still have not read/listened to _The Last Dodo_. I just came up with this premise, thought it would be fun, and ran with it. My apologies for any similarities, but my story will remain as it is.

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10.

The research station was, thankfully, empty when Rose and Codi stepped out of the teleport pod.

"All right," Rose said softly as she crept around the room, looking at the walls for some sign of the panel she was supposed to blow up. She had to suppress a laugh when she saw that Rashida had labeled almost every button, dial, and switch she could see. "Not much of an evil genius, was she?"

"Not really," Codi replied. "Just mean. She always thought everybody was thicker than she was – hence the labels, I guess."

"Right," Rose said, nodding. "Well, makes life easier for us. Start pushing buttons, I guess."

"Which ones?" Codi asked, her twiglike fingers hovering over the instrument panels, a look of derisive glee on her face.

"Any ones! We _are _supposed to make a mess out of all this."

Rose continued scanning the walls until she found a section that wasn't labeled. It was a little indentation in the metal, about the size of the edge of a CD case. Rose pushed it, and it popped out of the wall, much like a disc drive on a computer, but this one pulled out much further. Once she had pulled it out all the way, she found it swiveled so that the instrument panel was facing towards her. This panel, naturally, was not labeled at all.

"I think I've got it," Rose said, and she pressed a button on the upper right.

Suddenly all the screens around them changed. They no longer showed the pristine wilderness outside the research station, but the cages and unearthly mechanisms inside Rashida's laboratories. On one wall, the Resurrection Project's machine sad idle, menacing in its enormity. In others, there were hall monitors and lab cameras, keeping an eye on Rashida's underlings as they worked. And in still others, there were images of the cages they had found the Doctor in. Rose twiddled a dial, and the screen to her left zoomed in on an apelike being in a lab coat pouring out chemicals.

It took a bit of fiddling, but soon she had the dial zooming in on the screen she wanted. She scouted around until she could zoom in where she wanted – the Doctor's cage. He was leaning casually against the back of it, trying to look calm and bored, but she could see him glaring at the lock that his screwdriver hadn't been able to open.

"Blast deadlock seals," she heard him mutter. She jumped; she hadn't thought that it carried an audio link as well, but she must have pressed the right button.

"Hold on, Doctor," she said, but he just kept glaring at the lock. So she could hear him, but he couldn't hear her. Well, that wasn't helpful.

Rose took the sonic screwdriver out of the back pocket of her jeans and was flipping through the settings when she noticed a little purple button hidden unobtrusively amongst the others. Once she looked more closely at it, however, she decided that it wasn't purple, but mauve. That rang a bell with her, but she wanted to make sure.

"Codi," she asked, still staring at the button. "What's the universal color for danger?"

"Mauve," Codi answered automatically. "What planet have you been living on?"

"Earth," Rose answered, and she pressed the button.

The effect was immediate. The screens with a broader view of the cages showed that every single lock beeped three times and then switched off, allowing the cage doors to swing open on creaky hinges. Creatures of every shape, size, and colour imaginable began to surge forward, milling together and making an explosion of sound.

Rose looked back at the screen showing the Doctor. For a moment, he just stared incredulously at the open door, but then he laughed.

"Oh, brilliant," he said, grinning from ear to ear. "Rose Tyler, you are brilliant."

"Thanks," Rose replied with a smirk. She then turned back to the panel in front of her. "That ought to get Rashida's attention," she muttered to herself, scrolling through the sonic screwdriver's settings. "Now, to break this thing."

Once she reached setting 42, she pointed the screwdriver at the panel. The whirring noise the screwdriver made increased when it hit the instrument panel, and the whole thing began to flash and shake. After a moment, acrid black smoke began to curl out of the thing until it finally popped loudly. Rose jumped back in surprise, looking back at the blackened device. Some of the buttons and dials had been blown off, and now the holes were simply sparking, oozing smoke.

She looked back at the screen showing the Doctor and found that he was ducking around animals racing past him. She laughed.

"All right, Doctor. Your turn."


	11. Chapter 11

SNAP. My sincerest apologies, dear readers... I feel like a horrible person but I honestly forgot all about this. College has really pounced on me recently. I think I can remember to post the last two chapters after this, though.

Thanks to everyone for their reviews... I'm sorry for the horrible delay!

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11.

The Doctor spent quite a bit of time dodging around the creatures that were newly freed from their cages, just like him. He nearly tripped a few times trying not to step on various rodents. But finally he saw a warning light start to flash, and he smiled grimly. Any minute now, Rashida would be here.

When Rashida stormed in, a great many of her former captives raced out the steel doors before she could close them. She howled and ranted all the way over to where the Doctor sat, nonchalantly perched on top of a cage that had been knocked over.

"I was wondering how long it'd take you," he said, getting up. "Those aren't exactly _comfortable_, I'll have you know."

"_WHAT DID YOU DO?_" Rashida roared up at him, shaking her little fists up the three feet or so she had to look to meet his eyes.

"What, this? Wasn't me. It was my friend – you know, the one who wasn't qualified to converse with you? Yeah. I rather think she is."

"She destroyed all my work!" Rashida snarled.

"Quite right, too. None of this should exist, Rashida," the Doctor said softly.

"Who are you to say?" Rashida snapped. "Who are you to lord it over me, Doctor?"

"I'm not lording it, I'm telling the truth!" the Doctor said indignantly. "Genius it might be, but you're not even doing it for a good cause, are you – you're doing it so that you can get a little bit richer. So that you can get a little bit of fame. This 'green' stuff, it's very popular, isn't it? Being environmental has its advantages, doesn't it?"

"What do you know?" Rashida scoffed. She was fiddling with her device again, trying to get it to work, but nothing seemed to be responding to her. "Damn it!" she cried.

"Yeah, sorry, that'll be my friend too. She's doing a brilliant job at messing things up, isn't she?" The Doctor grinned, but then, upon seeing Rashida's scowling face, he grew serious again. "You can't do this, Rashida. It's not right, and I won't let you. But if you stop, I'll let you go. You can stop right now. Rose has destroyed your machine, she's let all your miracle creatures go. Let it end now."

"Hardly!" Rashida scoffed, laughing bitterly. "She hasn't destroyed the machine. The explosion would be cataclysmic. She has only destroyed my instrument panels – something that can be fixed the moment _you_ are out of the way!"

"Rashida, I'm warning you-"

"Would you give it up, Doctor?" Rashida shouted suddenly, and for once, the Doctor fell silent. "This power over life and death? Would you?"

The Doctor paused; he couldn't help but think of all the people he had lost over the years – of Gallifrey. How he wanted to bring them back, but – there was always that but in the way. Always that very solid reason why.

"Everything dies, Rashida," he explained softly.

"But what if it doesn't have to?"

"Don't lie to me," the Doctor replied harshly. "That's not why you're doing this."

"No," Rashida admitted reluctantly. "But it could be the reason you let me keep doing it."

"I can't."

Rashida had looked hopeful for a few minutes, but now her scowl returned. She raised the device in her hands, a vindictive look in her dark little eyes.

"So be it." And she pressed a button.

Something behind the Doctor exploded, and he instinctively leapt out of the way, ducking into the overturned cage for shelter. After the eruption was over, he had to quickly jam his foot in between the door and the cage before Rashida shut him in again. He scrambled to his feet, looking from the diminutive scientist to the massive, sparking fire she had created behind them.

"What?" the Doctor cried, beginning to shuffle away from the flames as they inched closer.

"I've had explosives under this floor for quite some time now," Rashida said calmly. She folded up her device and put it into her pocket. "So that I might end my research in the manner of my choosing. You see, I knew I wouldn't be allowed to do this. That's why it's all so secret. But if someone ever did discover my work, I could destroy it myself, instead of having it wrecked by someone who did not know what they were doing. So my research shall end. And you, Doctor, will be the man known for blowing up the conservation planet of Lunti!"

"_What_?" the Doctor cried, but just then there was another explosion, closer this time, and he threw his arms up to shield his face. He heard Rashida's laugh turn into a scream. It was then that he began to run, without stopping to look back.

He reached the massive doors to the warehouse as the fire raged even higher. He slammed his fist into the mechanism working the doors, and they jolted open. Panicked creatures galloped, slithered, and flew past him, but he didn't have time to stop. He was running again, running to the nearest teleport pod he could find. Of course, it was closer to the fire, rather than farther away.

"Come on, come _on_!" he growled at the pod as he pressed the button frantically. The wiring seemed to be shorting out already. Finally, though, the door slid open and he tumbled inside as the fire reached angry tendrils out to draw him in.

Moments later, he tumbled out of the pod at Rose Tyler's feet.

"Doctor!" she cried happily, but her face fell at the expression he wore as he scrambled up.

"No time," he said, racing towards the instrument panel. "We've got to stop this planet from blowing up!"


	12. Chapter 12

Right! Second-to-last chapter, here. Thanks to cremela, Cinderpel2, Genuka, and ChampionShoes for their reviews!

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12.

Codi stood, shocked almost to the point of paralysis, while Rose began doing what the Doctor told her to do. She watched as both of them scrambled desperately around the room, pushing buttons. _Pushing buttons_. That was all Rashida ever did. What good would that do?

Suddenly she lunged towards the wall and pulled a large, mauve lever down. Sirens began blaring immediately.

"What did you do that for?" the Doctor asked, his voice muffled by the sonic screwdriver he had clenched between his teeth as he typed furiously.

"I – sounded the alarm. Maybe there's still time to evacuate-" Codi began falteringly. Her eyes were wide and terrified. Rose went over to stand with her, trying to comfort the tree woman as best she could

"No, now there will just be people running about in a panic – and that's always so frustrating," the Doctor replied, poking the sonic screwdriver underneath the instrument panel. He cursed suddenly, slamming his fist onto the top of the console.

"It's no good. I'll have to get back to the TARDIS to sort this out… Rose?"

"Yes Doctor?" she asked, looking around from where she stood with Codi.

"Can you get back down to the room with the machine?"  
"The one with the velociraptor, you mean?"

"Yes, that one."

"Yeah, I suppose," she said reluctantly.

"Brilliant. I need you to go down there and find the power supply. And when you do, I want you to turn it all the way up, all right?"

"Turn it _up_?" she asked incredulously. Codi whimpered.

"Yes. If you turn it all the way up, I'll be able to lock onto the source from the TARDIS. It uses the same form of energy. Once I do that, I'll be able to reroute it away from the machine and into the warehouse. I can thread it through the circuits in there and send the explosions through the void to someplace safe."

"You're going to _what_?" Codi asked in disbelief. None of that had made any sense at all to her, but she saw that Rose was nodding.

"All right. I'll see you soon," she said, and charged towards the teleport pod.

The moment Rose and Codi were gone the Doctor dove outside, onto the catwalk again. For a few precious seconds, the glare of the sunlight stopped him in his tracks, but once he could see again he found he had to shove his way through a throng of terrified tourists, all of them demanding answers.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, he had slipped past them, and he was running towards the TARDIS, his white trainers clanging loudly on the metal catwalk. He skidded to a halt and clambered into the police box, slamming the door behind him as he ran to the console. He began punching at things, even whacked something with the hammer he kept under the console, all the time dancing back to the screen to see whether or not the energy levels had risen.

"Come on, Rose," he muttered softly as he geared up his ship for its task.

Rose and Codi were sprinting down the passageway. The fire had begun to creep out of the warehouse that was containing it, and while it had not yet caused flames to sprout up in any other parts of the building, it was wreaking all sorts of havoc with the electrical system. The two women had often had to duck as panels flew off the walls, jettisoned by sparking wires. Codi was in a panic, yelping every time sparks flew – and Rose could hardly blame her, since the tree woman would catch fire far more easily than she would.

They had also run into – sometimes literally – more than one of Rashida's animals as they tried to flee the chaos downstairs. Whenever they could, they left open the doors they ran through so that the creatures had some chance of escape. By the time they reached the machine room, Rose was audibly cursing Rashida.

"Why the hell is she doing this?" she growled under her breath as she searched for the control panel she needed. "Why pluck all of those things out of their lives, trap them here, and then want to blow them up?"

"She isn't exactly _sane_," Codi put in rather unhelpfully.

"God, I _hate _mad scientists," Rose replied. Then her face lit up. "There it is!"

She should have guessed – everything on the panel they needed was coated in mauve. It didn't take her long to find the dial that controlled the power levels, but either it was wound _very _tightly or it was rusty, because it turned far too slowly for her liking. As she struggled with it, she watched the graph-screen to the right rocket the energy levels up. The machine began hissing and shaking, and Codi backed against the far wall, but Rose kept turning the dial, watching the screen.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor was watching more or less the same thing, as his readings of the energy level slowly rose as well.

"That's it, Rose!" he cried, watching as the graph punched through to the top, and he jerked down the last lever.

At the same instant, he was thrown away from the console and Rose and Codi were knocked down to the floor of the machine room. The whole of Lunti seemed to be shaken by a concussion – not an explosion, not an earthquake, but a booming _feeling_ that sucked the breath out of everyone who felt it.

Rose looked up from the floor in time to see the massive machine in front of her go dark – it was utterly dead. She had never thought of a machine as dead in this way before, but this one most certainly was. There wasn't a spark of energy left in it. She couldn't hear the sparks and the faint roaring of the fire anymore. Everything was, for once, strangely quiet.

The Doctor watched the energy levels settle back to normal in the aftermath of the concussion. The explosions and harmful energy had flickered out of existence, whisked away by the TARDIS' power to someplace where they wouldn't do any damage. He leaned back against the console with a sigh. It was all over.


	13. Chapter 13

All right, here it is! The last chapter. Thank you very much to everyone who has reviewed, I really appreciate it!

Enjoy!

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13.

The Doctor was waiting for her when Rose reached the TARDIS. Immediately, Rose leapt forward and wrapped him in a huge hug.

"You all right?" the Doctor said after a moment, putting her down.

"Fine," she said, smiling as she nodded. "And Codi's okay too. She's just gone to calm down her coworkers – they were all milling about in a panic when we passed by."

The Doctor laughed.

"I had a feeling that's what would happen when she pulled the alarm. So, everything all set downstairs?"

"Yup. The machine's dead, all the fires are gone, and Codi told some of the other lab workers who weren't a complete wreck to start shepherding Rashida's animals out of there."

The Doctor grinned at her.

"Brilliant. Looks like everything's back to normal. The energy levels have settled; Lunti is a peaceful, green planet again."

Rose nodded, and she looked back at all the confused tourists she had had to weave through on her way over.

"What are we gonna do about them?"

"Ah, they'll figure it out," the Doctor said dismissively. "No harm done, anyway."

"You always do it like that, don't you?" Rose asked, her tone incredulous but a smile on her face nonetheless. "You always dash in, save the world, and then dash out again."

"Nah," the Doctor replied. "You did a lot more saving than me." He gave her a massive grin, then held open the door of the TARDIS for her. "And besides, if I stuck around, I'd just get in the way. Codi seems to have things under control now that there isn't an imminent crisis. I think she'll deal with the mess Rashida left behind rather well."

"What happened to her, anyway?" Rose asked, leaning across the console towards him. The Doctor's face immediately stiffened, his expression grim. It was one she had seen before. "Oh." She fell silent, looking down.

"Right," the Doctor said cheerily after a tense moment. "Where to next? Someplace – oh, I dunno, someplace that isn't actually dangerous for once?"

"Are you even capable of that?" Rose teased, hands on hips. "The trouble seems to find you, half the time!"

"Guilty of that, I'm afraid," the Doctor said, his apologetic look spoiled by his smirk.

"But it's so much more exciting," Rose explained, walking over to him and taking his hand. "I wouldn't have it any other way."


End file.
